


Many Splendid Things

by BlueKiwi



Category: Dresden Files - All Media Types, Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 03:15:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueKiwi/pseuds/BlueKiwi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of faerie tale- and literary-inspired character drabbles from The Dresden Files.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jack and the Beanstalk

There is magic to his words that have nothing to do with spells or incantations, circles or wizards, demons or angels. When he tells the stories, his hands move as if they have a life of their own, fluttering and callused and big. It is something familiar, stories that are common to children, but sometimes with a twist - he smiles when he tells them, and there is a sweet kindness in his smile that is tinged by something lost, something sad.

But the words live and breathe and as they travel - they transform cities into metropolises of light and country roads into perilous troll-swarmed trails. He tells of castles in the sky and of dragons and of princesses who dance and fight as well as any knight. He tells of heroes wielding blazing swords that fight evil sorceresses. He speaks of kingdoms and castles, farmlands and villages, and the little boy’s eyes light up from the back of the car, listening to every word, his imagination soaring.

And there is one story that he tells as the lights of the city vanish to the blue-green darkness of the country, lit by lazily drifting fireflies, and it is of giants. Giants as big as mountains, as ferocious as lions, with hordes of gold and little patience. And though the little boy sometimes falls asleep when the man speaks about faerie godmothers and dwarfs and hair made of spun silk, he stares in wide-eyed amazement when he hears of tales of an impossible tall beanstalk and a young man who risks everything to help his mother, a strange distant word that he has never known.

The little boy thrills at the chase, laughs at the gold, and follows the young hero as if he himself were made of the same dreams and hopes and strengths.

And when the man dies one night, thinking of the woman he loved, the stories die with him. But the giants will come and they will go, and he will be there to save the princesses and fight the witches and slay the demons and bring down the empires.

It is what heroes do.


	2. The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Some people think he is charlatan.

He has long since brushed away their opinions to some dust-ridden corner of disgruntled nonchalance - it is part of the job as much as the mojo, and he can’t say that he isn’t used to it. He takes their laughter and whispers and angry glares in stride, though, to be honest, he still bristles at being laughed at. Maybe it was a child’s pain, an ache that has yet to start to heal.

When he takes the case, he knows that there will be trouble. Children are involved, led away into the darkness by strange music, and he can’t stand to see harm come to the most innocent in the world. But one of the parents is unsure - a tailored woman with nails manicured into talons and shoes too high and expensive - and she has her _opinions_ and honestly, is this what taxpayer money is going towards? She’ll have none of it. He accepts the barbs, accepts the insults (returns a few of his own actually, much to Murphy’s annoyance), and then does his job.

It’s what they pay him to do, and he saves seventeen of the children.

There had been eighteen.

The funeral service is lovely, with flowers and songs and too many people for him to feel entirely comfortable. He pays his respects, along with Murphy, and she shares his frustration and his sadness with a reassuring hand folded in his. He says nothing to the mother, and isn’t it ironic that it was her bright-eyed, cherub-cheeked girl who would be the first to fall in the poisonous lure of music? She watches him though, and there’s anger.

Seventeen will never be eighteen.

There are battles to be won, and battles that are lost, but he wishes that today, the former didn’t feel like such a tremendous blow.


	3. Cinderella

She had never believed in faerie tales.

Who wanted to have someone in shining armor sweep her off of her feet and away into a sunset? She fought hard to win her own battles and like hell would she need to be a damsel in distress for some testosterone-driven idiot to rescue her. She was as tough as any knight, made from steel and of things stronger, a whiplash effect that wouldn’t break. She has had her demons, yes, but they’ve only served to make her stronger.

But there were still things that she couldn’t deny, even as she laughed against the mercenary’s bare chest and tried not to think of a pair of dark eyes and constantly rumpled hair and a wit as quick as silver and a dry laugh. She doesn’t dream about these things - her world is based on facts and monsters and terror. There is no time to get lost in the clouds of romance and happily-ever-afters.

She won’t wait around for faerie godmothers or pine for things that are impossible. She does not want to be Cinderella.

And Harry cannot ever be Prince Charming.


	4. The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Most days, the life of an apprentice is silly.

There are enough Star Wars quotes in her life to make her never want to see the movies ever again (although Harry sagely agrees that the first three - or was it the last three - are a perfectly good waste of time, and George Lucas is just a money-hoarding thief with a distracting beard) and she spends most of her time trying to help Harry figure out his lab (she was, however, able to sneak out on a date with Carlos when Harry was busy trying to extinguish Little Chicago from a fire he had started in Millennium Park).

She learns about potions and spells and rituals and foci and _restraint_ , and she does have to admit that most of it is pretty helpful. It tames her - she doesn’t like the word, but it does - and it helps her focus on magic so subtle that she suspects that Harry would never be able to grasp it.

She watches him sometimes, on the days when she truly wishes they aren’t just teacher and student. He mutters something about a case, and she props her chin on her fist and asks inane questions as Mouse shuffles next to her and falls asleep. He teaches her a lot and she respects him for that. But there are so many days, so _many_ days, when she wishes that he would just open up his eyes and _see_.

Most days, there’s magic in the air, and he is the one that taught her to fly.

And one day, maybe just one day, he’ll realize what it means for her to have wings.


	5. Red Riding Hood

It was naivete that led her down the road years ago, soaked in blood and as red as her cape.

There are wolves in the world, and she was stubborn enough to follow them into their lair, unprepared but determined. She follows the truth, has always followed the truth. It is what people deserve to know and what so many others try to hide. It was in the darkness of that night, when she was bitten and her blood began to simmer with an insane hunger that would haunt her for years, that she realized that all secrets are kept for a reason, all monsters under the bed were real.

She made promises that she had to break, found lies could escape her mouth more easily than before, and she turned her back on the person she cared about more than anything in the world to save him as he had tried to save her. So many years. So many mistakes. But it was a simple truth: she had become a predator and he was her prey. He loved her too much to run, she loved him too much to stay.

Mistakes. Truths. When she kissed him, she knew what they had was broken. A single strand of life couldn’t fix that - it shattered them more. She should never have followed the wolves.

Now, she lies bound and raging and broken by her own mantra, devoured by wolves that disguise themselves behind beautiful masks, looking up at the knife held in the hand of the man she loved.

One more truth.

It will set her free.


	6. Beauty and the Beast

It _never_ should have worked.

Once upon a time, they would have fit the mold of corrupted and drugged perfection. She would have laughed, eyes wide and blankly staring, as beautiful and pale as porcelain and dancing with life as pure as gold. Her carefree laugh rang like bells, girlish and pealing, and it would draw the eyes of everyone around her as she danced and danced and danced.

He would watch her like the others and then he would be by her side, pressing a kiss to her shoulder, feeling her shudder with a sexual ecstasy that had nothing to do with love, wanting him and needing him, the world be damned. The demon lurked like a toxin beneath his skin, and she would submit to it every time with a whimper and a sigh and a kiss. It continued like that - a butterfly that foolishly fell into a net every single time.

Once upon a time, it was simple. Easy. Forgettable and forgotten.

But, slowly and surely, there was a lucid part of her that wanted more than just that. And there was a part of him that hated to see her hurt, that tried to tame his nature back with every caress and every kiss. It was beautiful and dynamic and torturous, but it was a change.

Love tore their world asunder and this wasn’t the happily ever after bestowed on princesses and princes, on damsels and knights.

She is made of starlight now, silvers and grays and whites, except for the dark wisdom in her eyes, simmering with a love so powerful that she can bear him harm where he no longer can. The starlight is a reminder of what once was and what no longer can be, but that doesn’t stop either of them. She is his as much as he is hers, and even if the world falls to waste, this will always remain the same. And when he asks her that same question over and over despite knowing the answer before it falls from her lips, she always says no.

It is always the same, even if they don’t wish it to be.

But she slips her tiny, delicate hand in his and smiles and she smells like flowers and spring and every lovely living thing, and the moment is beautiful again.


	7. Alice in Wonderland

She remembers running from the fire.

Dark, ugly swirls of crimson paint still dance upon her pale limbs as everything crashes down around her, and she chokes on the smoke the descends like some ghastly beast, tears streaming down soot-stained cheeks. It hurts, but not as much as the ripping in her heart and the confusion in her head. She is sure that she is going to die, and it scares her almost as much as the idea that the one who lives through the fight will tear her apart because her betrayal.

It rings in her head, and she doesn’t know who is right and who is wrong, but she knows that she’s losing everything. Someone is screaming, and the fire rages and scorches and burns. She stumbles, limbs shaking so violently that she can’t even begin to force herself to go further, and she heaves from the oily smoke filling her lungs. She curls up on cool emerald grass, blinking at the inferno through tears, her head threatening to rip itself open. She can’t move anymore. She has done her part. She has betrayed Harry, she has betrayed Justin, and one of them will kill her for it.

Empty night, she is going to die and she just wants...

A sob escapes her and she clasps a fist around the silver pentacle at her neck - it is the only thing left she has the energy to do. Stars above, she doesn’t _want_ to die. She doesn’t know what she’s done, and it _hurts_ to think and the growing flames burn her eyes through the tears. She has to run but she’s spent and there’s nowhere to hide - they are going to find her and make her pay and all of the nightmares and all of the demons will be nothing compared to that pain, that loss. She shivers violently from fear and pain and cold, and darkness swims at the edge of her vision until she only sees the violent reds and golds and blacks of the fire and the smoke.

It fades.

She’s gone.

And then, when the darkness passes, she feels a cool hand on her shoulder, and a savior’s voice, sweet and beautiful and curious, murmuring into her hair, as intimate as any lover’s. A sharp pain fills her lungs every time she tries to take a breath, but she whispers words in a rush, terror and smoke and poison brimming around the edges and making them harsh. _I’m sorry, I’m sorry...please help me. I’m so scared. Stars, please_...

She is lost and confused, and her body is cold and raging hot from brutal magic that has left its mark.

 _What a pretty broken bird_... Long, cold fingers touch her cheek, and sweetly-scented air brushes against her hair and her naked body. She can no longer smell the burning of her childhood. _She still had strength to come here of her own free will. Poor, delusional child_...

In a disorienting riot of color, she sees snowy hair framing an inhumanly beautiful face, sharp green eyes devoid of warmth, and a smile...a smile that promises things that she is frightened of, that she dreads and longs for, and she closes her eyes again with a whimper. The woman - the faerie - continues to stroke her hair with an almost fond gentleness, as if soothing a lost and scared child, whispering words of comfort. Sanctuary. It is a dream. She drifts off, thinking she’s safe for now, in the arms of immortals.

It is a perfectly beautiful, perfectly strange, perfectly deadly Wonderland.


	8. Hansel and Gretel

The twins were in the habit of gathering secrets.

There was a solemness in their dark eyes every time they went out, toddling behind their father with their hands grasped together tightly, their white and gray clothing a perfect mimicry of each other. They were indulged by the rich patrons who were indebted to their father, people who commented on how beautiful they were, how well-behaved, how sweet. Gifts and sweets and compliments showered them wherever they went. It made them spoiled and their father often said how much better they were than other people, how the folk that wandered the streets were lambs to be taken to the slaughter, that they wouldn’t understand now, but soon...

At night, when the household was asleep and the girl had rightfully reclaimed her porcelain doll from her cousin, her brother would sneak into her room. They would hide under the heavy covers, sharing sweets and stories and secrets; there were so many secrets, dark tales that the family would never say aloud. It scared them when Papa’s eyes would turn white as snow or when the family would come and visit and bring with them the cold that lurked even in the sweltering days of summer.

‘Come on, Madrigal,’ she whispered, holding his hands in hers as the storm rattled the windows outside, hearing whispers imagined and real from people who wove webs as easily as they breathed. ‘They won’t find us here.’

‘Don’t cry, Madeline,’ or he would say as the vicious cold lurked just beyond the door, smelling of death and flowers and deceit. ‘I’m still here. I’m still the same.’

When the years would pass and the days would end and toys changed to invitations and favors, she would still seek him out, slipping into his room and curling up under his arm, a place familiar and safe and _normal_. Every day, the world would get darker and the secrets would gather and the storm would descend. That coldness would be there and no one would say anything, but they would watch and wait for the day when the hunger within grew mad with desire. The compliments would always come, but they were vacant and useless and vain.

Beautiful, spoiled pawns.

It was always the same - no matter how many secrets they gathered, no matter where they tried to run, they would be as lost as little children and nothing would ever lead them back home.


End file.
